10,000 Web-Sites Hacked, Who’s Next?

In the last few hours we have observed a high-profile hack in progress, which supposedly infected 10,000 web-sites with a script-based attack used to launch and execute malicious code. According to reports from several leading security firms the hack was orchestrated in a similar fashion to how the Miami Dolphins site was used to serve up malicious code to its viewers.

The web-sites supposedly pointed to a file which then executed malicious code on the user’s PC.

In the world of cyber-crime that is driven by an underground economy more and more of these web-based attacks will emerge targeting specific populations and in some cases the security vendor itself as seen recently with one of the top three security vendors in the world.

Because the attack was part of a global effort by hackers we suspect that perhaps hundreds or even thousands of users could have already been infected by the Trojan from different sites across the globe.

Today’s hackers are in it for the profit thus we recommend that consumers and business users alike check their PCs for malicious code before doing any online commerce that could be associated with this attack, the extend of which is uncertain. Today’s incident begs the question: what percentage of the Internet may already be laced with crime-ware?